


Public Relations: Lotus For Tea

by sevenall



Series: PANTHEON: Public Relations [7]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alicia's Pantheon universe, Will Braddock Worthington grows up during the new world order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:55:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenall/pseuds/sevenall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betsy touched down briefly in Banjul, to get her bearings and some domoda,</p>
            </blockquote>





	Public Relations: Lotus For Tea

The coordinate axis was off, sure proof of Jamie's presence. Approaching the coastline, Betsy felt the numbers stretch, twist, even invert. She touched down briefly in Banjul, to get her bearings and some domoda, then overjumped her target eastwards, hitting Kuntaui. There was no safer place, which had seemed reason enough to choose Jamie for Will's guardian. No one could get close if Jamie didn't want them to; it was difficult enough for those he did welcome.

Jamie's estate was larger than all of Gambia, once you were inside. From the outside, it was just one more farm on the east border of Kian National Park. A few acres of fallow fields, a landowner who kept to himself. Nothing remarkable, except that this landowner could have ruled this earth and Otherworld, had he been so inclined.

Space didn't like being pulled about and folded over. As Betsy homed in on her target, the currents and eddies in the ambience got worse. When she estimated she was no more than a couple of miles away, subjective distance, she dropped out of the shadow plane.

She might have walked all day to get there. If Jamie hadn't approved of her coming, she might have spent the rest of her life walking. But it was only twenty minutes or so before she reached the entrance and the wrought-iron gates swung open in front of her. 

As always, anything she looked straight at seemed perfectly normal, but in the periphery, things were warping and changing to her expectations. The large house reminded her of Braddock Manor and of the house on Greymalkin Lane at the same time and she wondered if Jamie had told it to look like home. The command was dangerous, left open-ended like that.

She turned her eyes and mind to the terrace where afternoon tea was being set up. There were guests as well as servants and at the end of the table was Jamie himself, playing host. She hadn't known he kept people at the estate. Then she took a closer look and realised that he didn't.

Brian and Meggan were there, talking and laughing with her parents, who were only a little grayer than when she had last seen them alive. Alistair leaned over the table, the better to trade insults with his his sister. As Betsy watched, the terrace doors opened and another couple joined the assembly. The man was blond and the woman had purple hair.

\--

The world tilted. Jet fuel exploded, blasting her away in a wave of searing light. She tasted blood. She fell through fire with the sea coming up to meet her, but when she connected, there was grass under her hands, not water. Yet, she kept falling.

\--

Some time later, the grass under her turned to red dust.

"I'm sorry to have upset you." Jamie's voice. And Jamie's shoes, immaculately polished.

She raised her head. The manor, the lawn, the tennis courts and the stables were gone. There was only Jamie, tall and handsome as ever.

"I only wanted him to be happy," he said and that line was pure Jamie, not quite sure what he had done wrong, but willing to make up for it any way he could.

"I know," Betsy whispered. "You did the best you could for him, Jamie, and I thank you for it, I love you for it, but I have come to take him with me."

Jamie frowned, clearly unhappy with the idea.

"Or you could stay," he suggested.

"No."

She had to answer quickly, before she said yes. Jamie smiled, sly and pleased like a clever child.

"For you I'd make it Saturday morning always," he mused. "Imagine the whole glorious weekend stretching out in front of you. I'd give you time, like you've never had before."

"Jamie, you didn't…"

He shook his head, serious again.

"No. I let time elapse for him. Six months, I think, a few days give or take. I thought that was what you'd have wanted. You won't… mind if I make another one of him, will you? When he's gone. I did like having someone around."

He made a gesture towards the house. The porch was empty now and the façade looked somehow less substantial. She couldn't snatch away that, the last sliver of family he had or could have.

"I won't mind," she said. "You shouldn't be lonely."

A wistful smile.

"I won't be, Oh, well, here he is, then."

And since Jamie said it, he was. A little taller, but otherwise looking just the same as the last time she'd seen him. Betsy couldn't speak, just reached for him and Will came.

"I knew you'd come," he said against her shoulder. " I knew it all the time."

THE END


End file.
